The present invention relates generally to the area of information processing and, more particularly, apparatus and methods for mapping or translating information from one data set to another.
Successful management of one's schedule and contacts is a goal that every successful professional must achieve. One's business day may be swept away in a deluge of meetings and appointments, all of which must be somehow managed. An attempt to manage this task on paper, such as with a simple wall calendar, is unworkable for all but the simplest of schedules. More likely, such unsophisticated aids to managing one's time will lead to scheduling conflicts, missed appointments, botched deadlines, and angry clients.
The first allies that professionals discovered were portable "organizers," such as the DayTimer.TM. or the Lafax.TM.. However, an increasing number are discovering the power of personal computers for managing appointments, contacts, and "to do" tasks. For instance, several scheduling packages are available for the PC. While not as portable as paper organizers, scheduling packages offer increased flexibility in other areas. For example, one may view his or her schedule from a variety of views--by month, week, day, or priority--and attach detailed notes to appointments. Additional options available include the ability to automatically schedule a meeting for the first Monday of every other month, or display horizontal bars which graphically represent one's weekly schedule, so that free time can be quickly pinpointed. Other options include the ability to easily edit an entry, and set alarms as a reminder of important appointments.
With ever increasing emphasis on miniaturization and portability, several of the features of personal information management (PIM) packages may now be found in handheld information processing devices, such as the Sharp Wizard.TM., REX.TM., Casio BOSS.TM., and Palm Pilot.TM.. Being roughly the size of a handheld calculator, these electronic organizers are often carried when one is away from the office. As a tradeoff for portability, however, these devices typically forego several of the more desirable features found on desktop personal computers (e.g., full color graphics display). As a result, it is common for a professional to employ a personal computer to manage his or her time, yet carry a portable organizer when he or she is away from the office. Upon returning to the office, the information in the personal computer is then updated with the new information in the portable organizer.
Updating or reconciling two sets of information, whether between a PC and an organizer, or between two computers joined by a communication network, has never been easy. The reconciliation of user scheduling and contact information has been particularly difficult. A particular problem faced by a user of information management programs is the difficulty of translating or mapping data fields from one device to those of another. Consider, for instance, a user device having the following source data fields:
First Name PA1 Last Name PA1 Street Address 1 PA1 Street Address 2 PA1 City PA1 State PA1 Zip Code PA1 Phone PA1 FAX PA1 First PA1 Last PA1 Home Address 1 PA1 Home Address 2 PA1 Home City PA1 Home State PA1 Home ZIP PA1 Telephone PA1 Telephone 2 PA1 regular expression=type
Now, suppose the user also has a portable device with the following destination data fields:
As it can be seen, some of the fields are identical, others are somewhat similar, and finally still others are completely different.
A conventional approach to mapping fields between two devices is to display a user interface dialogue allowing the user to select pairs of fields. In such an approach, fields which are identical are already selected by the system, thereby leaving the user with some number of remaining fields to pair up. Such an approach works reasonably well if only a small number of fields are involved. Often, however, each set of data fields comprise a multitude of fields, hence making it very inconvenient for the user to manually match or pair up fields which are not identical, or at least very similar. A better approach is therefore desired.
What is needed is a system which allows a user of an information processing device to readily map or translate user information, such as user-supplied contact lists, from one data set on one device into another data set, either on the same device or on another device. The present invention fulfills this and other needs.